Irrigation

The system is a Rainbird Dialog+ controller  with Eagle 750 sprinklers (rotors).

STARTING/STOPPING

We try to avoid irrigation, to make the lawns as fast as possible, but we do need to water to prevent the grass dying and therefore getting bumpy, i.e. when it starts to get seriously brown. So the system is mostly OFF, with a big X on the top right of the screen. Press the ON/OFF button and it should disappear and the system will now be ON. Turn it OFF as soon as the groundsman thinks it is safe to do so.

RUNNING A MANUAL CYCLE (normally groundsman only)

This is needed after fertiliser is applied and occasionally at other times, so normally only by our groundsman. NOTE: the irrigation system will be ON after this runs unless you wait and run step 5 at the end.
1. If there’s a big X on the top right of the screen no watering takes place, so press the ON/OFF button.
2. Press ѠCYC and Cycle A should appear
3. Press the +/ON button (top left) and a sprinkler picture should appear at the top, indicating that the cycle has started which takes about 70-75 minutes.
4. If you need to cancel within 1 minute press -/OFF (middle left). After that press ѠSTA and then -/OFF
5. At the end of the cycle if there was an X before step 1 press the ON/OFF button and it should reappear.

STANDARD SETTINGS

All sprinklers are set to use Cycle A. Cycle A is normally set to run twice a week (Monday and Thursday) at 3am. Please do not use Cycles B and C. 

The diagram of the layout below gives the initial (planned) set-up timings in minutes and water amount calculations. A few changes have been made to make the greening a bit more even (taking into account the area around tree needs more water and the poor drainage on lawn 3 means less water is needed):

Rotors 1 and 8 from 6 to 7/8 minutes
Rotor 3 from 3 to 2 minutes
Rotors 10 and 11 from 12 to 13 minutes

CHANGING THE FREQUENCY OF WATERING (not recommended to be used)

To change the frequency of watering you need to change Cycle A. For the default see Settings below.
1. Press ѠCYC (middle right) and the current cycle A setting should appear.
2. Press ┘ (bottom left) until the desired cycle appears (see manual on the left for the nine options, e.g. daily or once/twice a week)
3. Press ѠCYC to get back to the main screen.

CHANGING INTENSITY (very occasionally and preferable to changing frequency)

During summer we need to put more water on the lawns and in spring or autumn when it’s wet we need to put on less. We do this by turning it ON or when it’s ON by changing the frequency, but we can also adjust the intensity (number of minutes each sprinkler is on). The normal setting is 100%, but this can be adjusted up or down by 10% increments to a maximum of 130% when it’s really dry and a minimum of 70% when it’s damp (at least Spring/Autumn).
To change it:
1. Press %/DL (bottom right)
2. Press +/ON (top left) to increase the %age and -/OFF (middle left) to reduce it
3. Press %/DL again to get back to the main screen

TESTING A SPRINKLER

1. If there’s a big X on the top right of the screen press the ON/OFF button and it should disappear.
2. Press ѠSTA and the number 1 should appear on the left (sprinkler number)
3. Press ┘ until the desired number appears (the run time appears on the right)
4. Press the +/ON button and it should start ( to stop it before it’s ended press the -/OFF button)
5. Press ѠSTA to get back to the main screen.
6. At the end if there was an X at the top before step 1 press the ON/OFF button and it should reappear.